At least 30 US military planes have been moved from bases in America to Europe over the past three days, flight tracking data reviewed by BBC Verify has shown.

The planes in question are all US military tanker aircraft used to re-fuel fighter jets and bombers. According to Flightradar24, at least seven of these – all KC-135s – stopped off in US airbases in Spain, Scotland and England.

The flights come as Israel and Iran continue to exchange strikes, after Israel launched an operation on Friday that it said was to destroy Tehran’s nuclear programme.

It is unclear whether the US movements are directly connected to the conflict, but one expert told BBC Verify that the tanker aircraft flights were “highly unusual”.

Justin Bronk, a senior analyst with the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) think tank, said that the deployments were “highly suggestive” that the US was putting in place contingency plans to “support intensive combat operations” in the region in the coming weeks.

The seven jets tracked by BBC Verify have since travelled on and according to flight tracking data could be seen flying east of Sicily as of Tuesday afternoon. Six had no stated destination – one landed on the Greek island of Crete.

But the former head of Irish Defence Forces, Vice-Admiral Mark Mellett, said that the movements could be part of a broader policy of “strategic ambiguity” that could be attempting to influence Iran to make concessions in talks over its nuclear programme.

Israel initially launched an attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure on Friday, just a day after President Donald Trump’s deadline to Iran to strike a deal on suspending its nuclear programme expired.

The jet movements come amid reports that the US has also moved an aircraft carrier – the USS Nimitz, from the South China Sea towards the Middle East. The Reuters news agency reported that a planned event involving the ship in Vietnam was cancelled after what the US embassy in Hanoi called an “emergent operational requirement”.

MarineTraffic, a ship-tracking website, showed that the USS Nimitz’s last location was in the Malacca Strait heading towards Singapore early on Tuesday. The Nimitz carries a contingent of fighter jets and is escorted by several guided missile destroyers.

The US has also moved F-16, F-22 and F-35 fighter jets to bases in the Middle East, three defence officials told Reuters on Tuesday. The tanker planes moved to Europe over the past several days can be used to re-fuel these jets.

Earlier on Tuesday, Vice-President JD Vance suggested that the US could intervene to support Israel’s campaign, writing on social media that Trump “may decide he needs to take further action” to end Iran’s nuclear programme.

Tehran is believed to run two principal underground enrichment sites. Natanz has already been hit by Israel, and Fordo is buried deep within a mountain complex near the city of Qom.

To penetrate the facility, the US would likely have to use GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) munitions, two senior Western military officers told BBC Verify. MOPs are huge, 30,000lb (13,600kg) bombs also known as “bunker busters”.

The bomb is the only conventional weapon of its kind that is thought to be capable of breaching up to 200ft (60m) of concrete. Only the B-2 stealth bomber can carry the munitions.

Recently, the US has had a squadron of B-2 bombers at its base on the island of Diego Garcia. While the island is some 2,400 miles from Iran’s southern coastline, their location on Diego Garcia would put them well within striking of range of Iran.

“You would be able to maintain a sustained operation from [Diego Garcia] far more efficiently,” Air Marshall Greg Bagwell – a former RAF deputy operations chief – told BBC Verify. “You could literally have them round the clock operating.”

Satellite images first showed B-2 bombers had been stationed on Diego Garcia at the end of March, but the most recent imagery from the island no longer shows the bombers present.

2:04How one US weapon could change the course of the Israel-Iran conflict

Vice-Admiral Mellet said he would expect to see the bombers on the island ahead of any operation targeting Iran and called their absence “a missing piece of the jigsaw”.

Air Marshall Bagwell agreed. But he noted that B-2s have been known to operate for 24 hours at a time and could launch from the continental US if the White House decided to launch a strike.

“They’ve taken away any means for Iran to now defend itself, which obviously leaves any military or even the nuclear targets pretty much at the mercy of whatever Israel wants to do to it.”

Additional reporting by Merlyn Thomas.

bbc.com

Israeli forces have killed more than 51 Palestinians and wounded many more after opening fire near an aid distribution site in southern Gaza, witnesses and rescuers say.

The Hamas-run civil defence agency said Israeli troops fired on crowds near the aid site in Khan Younis. More than 200 people were reportedly injured.

The Israeli military has told the BBC it is looking into the reports.

It is the latest, and potentially the deadliest, of the almost daily shootings that have been taking place recently near aid distribution sites in Gaza.

READ ALSO: Iran still a strategic threat despite weakened proxies – Analyst warns

Almost all the casualties in Gaza in recent days have been linked to the delivery of aid rather than Israeli strikes on Hamas targets.

Witnesses say that Israeli forces opened fire and shelled an area near a junction to the east of Khan Younis, where thousands of Palestinians had been gathering in the hope of getting flour from a World Food Programme (WFP) site, which also includes a community kitchen nearby.

A local journalist and eyewitnesses said Israeli drones fired two missiles, followed shortly after by a shell from an Israeli tank positioned between 400 and 500m away from the crowd. The explosions caused many casualties.

The crowd had assembled near a key road leading to the town of Bani Suheila, an area that has seen weeks of ongoing Israeli military operations.

READ ALSO: Iran has wanted to erase us since 1979 – Israeli Ambassador to Ghana

Nasser Hospital, the main functioning medical facility in the area, has been overwhelmed by the number of casualties. It is so overcrowded that the many wounded are lying on the floor as medical staff treat their injuries.

Video showing the immediate aftermath of the incident and shared on social media has been located by BBC Verify to a location in Khan Younis. Gaza’s civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that at least 50 people were killed. “Israeli drones fired at the citizens. Some minutes later, Israeli tanks fired several shells at the citizens, which led to a large number of martyrs and wounded,” he said.

READ ALSO: Nuclear threat real, missiles already launched – Israeli envoy justifies attacks on Iran

In a statement the IDF said “a gathering was identified adjacent to an aid distribution truck that got stuck in the area of Khan Younis, and in proximity to IDF troops operating in the area.”

It said it was “aware of reports regarding a number of injured individuals from IDF fire following the crowd’s approach” and the incident was under review.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said it had received reports of a mass casualty incident.

“This is again the result of another food distribution initiative,” said Thanos Gargavanis, WHO trauma surgeon and emergency officer.

“There’s a constant correlation with the positions of the four announced food distribution sites and the mass casualty incidents,” he added, saying the trauma injuries in recent days were mostly from gunshot wounds.

For weeks, medical staff have warned that Nasser Hospital could be overwhelmed and unable to continue to operate under the pressure of multiple casualties, lack of medical supplies and Israeli evacuation orders in the surrounding area.

In recent days, the hospital has been dealing with an almost daily influx of casualties from shooting incidents near the aid distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – backed by Israel and the US – in southern and central Gaza.

In almost all those incidents, witnesses have said that Israeli troops opened fire, although there have also been reports of local armed gunmen shooting at people.

The response from the IDF has usually been to say that its troops warned people not to approach them – and then fired warning shots when what the IDF calls “suspects” acted in a manner deemed to pose a threat. The Israeli army has provided little or no detail beyond this.

Israel does not allow international news organisations including the BBC into Gaza, making verifying what is happening there difficult.

The GHF has also responded to the shootings by saying that they should not be mentioned in connection to their operations, as the incidents are happening away from their sites.

But there is no doubt that thousands of Palestinians would not be gathered in desperate search for limited supplies of food in those areas if it were not for the way that the new distribution system has been set up.

The IDF has also told Palestinians not to head to aid distribution sites between 18:00 and 06:00 local time. But in order to reach the sites and have a chance of getting food, people have little option.

Verified video from GHF sites show huge crowds of Palestinians rushing to try to get food parcels with no apparent control from the organisation. It has already closed its sites briefly on at least two occasions to try to improve security.

The other way of getting aid into Gaza – with around 100 trucks a day allowed in by Israel – has also also increasingly seen people being shot as they try to get to the supplies, whether from distribution points or from the aid convoy itself as it travels towards them.

It’s a sign of a breakdown both in security in Gaza and in the aid distribution system itself.

Hamas has responded to the latest incident by again describing the aid centres as death traps.

Looting among a population desperate for scarce supplies of food – with criminal gangs, militias and Hamas also operating for their own ends – has rendered the situation even more perilous.

• Searching for answers about US-backed aid agency in Gaza

Critics see the GHF as enabling a plan by the Israeli government to displace Palestinians south into smaller areas of Gaza. But Israel – which has long sought to remove the UN as the major humanitarian provider to Palestinians – argues the alternative system was needed to stop Hamas stealing aid.

On Monday, the UN human rights chief Volker Turk said that Israel was weaponising food and called for a full investigation into the shootings.

The head of Unrwa – the UN agency for Palestinian refugees – Philippe Lazzarini has said that in Gaza ‘tragedies go on unabated while attention shifts elsewhere’.

Yet there seems to be no plan from Israel, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation or the international community to find a way to prevent the near daily killing of Palestinians, as they take their lives in their hands to seek a meagre supply of food.

It has been 20 months since Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led cross-border attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 55,297 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

bbc.com

Israel’s ambassador to Ghana, Roey Gilad, has said Iran’s threats since the 1979 Islamic revolution justify Israel’s latest military strikes.

He described Tehran’s posture as a long-standing existential threat that has now matured into a dangerous and urgent reality.

Speaking on PM Express on Monday, June 16, the ambassador said Israel’s recent missile attacks on Iran were necessary and overdue.

“The answer is quite simple,” he said when asked why Israel had launched missiles into Iran.

“Whenever your enemy declares clearly his will and wish to get rid of you, to annihilate you, to destroy you, to erase you from the face of the earth—as the Iranian leaders are doing since February 1979—that’s when we become worried.”

He warned that the threat from Iran is both ideological and technological.https://www.youtube.com/embed/WgEOIu_zaUE?si=iM81KZkrMDq1dYp-

“We have many enemies that would like to erase us from the face of the earth, but do not have the ability. We have states that have the ability but do not want to erase us from the face of the earth. But when we have an enemy that has both—this is when we become worried,” he stressed.

The ambassador confirmed that the latest strikes on Iranian territory were carefully targeted at military and government sites.

Several high-ranking Iranian officers were reportedly killed. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the offensive “as long as necessary.”

Roey Gilad echoed that sentiment and pointed to growing internal support.

“Israelis are very opinionated people. It’s very hard to find consensus. But now there is a consensus that this was the right thing to do. The only discussion is whether we should have done it earlier.”

He said the real trigger was Iran’s rapid military buildup.

“They have enriched uranium up to 60%, which is enough for nine nuclear bombs. And they are developing, as you can see now, between 2,000 and 3,000 ballistic missiles.

“They’ve already launched 200 against Israel. That caused significant damage. That has to be said.”

Asked if this was strictly about the nuclear threat, the ambassador said it was a combination.

“It’s two things. It’s the nuclear threat. And it’s the missile threat. The ability and the will together—that’s the danger.”

Ambassador Gilad was blunt about the stakes.

“We are not playing games. We are fighting for survival. If you know your enemy wants to destroy you and is getting closer to doing so, you do not wait for the final blow.”

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